{"id":132976,"date":"2025-09-12T20:08:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T20:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/132976\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T20:08:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T20:08:13","slug":"government-shutdown-draws-near-as-democrats-push-for-healthcare-funding-us-federal-government-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/132976\/","title":{"rendered":"Government shutdown draws near as Democrats push for healthcare funding | US federal government shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US government is drawing nearer to a potential shutdown after Donald Trump<\/a> told Republicans<\/a> on Friday \u201cdon\u2019t even bother dealing with\u201d the Democrats<\/a>, whose congressional leaders are refusing to support spending bills that do not include their healthcare<\/a> priorities.<\/p>\n

Congress<\/a> is up against an end-of-the-month deadline to approve legislation funding the federal government, otherwise many departments will stop work and employees will be told to stay home. While the Senate<\/a> and House of Representatives<\/a> have made some progress on passing the 12 appropriations bills that make up the budget, it seems certain that Congress will need to pass a short-term measure to keep the government open beyond 30 September.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the top House and Senate Democrats said they would not support any legislation that does not meet their demands on healthcare.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not support a partisan spending agreement that continues to rip away healthcare from the American people, period, full stop,\u201d said Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Fox News on Friday morning, Trump insisted that Republicans should go it alone on spending \u2013 a tall ask because Democrats can use the Senate\u2019s filibuster to block legislation in the upper chamber.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to give away money to this and then that, destroy the country. If you gave them every dream, they would not vote for it,\u201d Trump said of the Democrats. He said he had told Republicans: \u201cDon\u2019t even bother dealing with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The squabble is developing as Democrats face pressure from their base to use whatever leverage they have in Congress to stand up to Trump, with an eye towards retaking control of at least one chamber in next year\u2019s midterm elections. While Jeffries and other top Democrats have been vague about what exactly they are demanding in exchange for keeping the government open, they appear to want to undo changes to Medicaid and other federal health insurance programs imposed by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act<\/a> Republicans passed in July.<\/p>\n

They have also pushed for an extension of subsidies for the premiums charged by Affordable Care Act plans, warning that millions of Americans will be forced to pay more for health coverage if they are not renewed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re already feeling it,\u201d said Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader. \u201cIn several states, notices have gone out already how your healthcare premiums and your insurance is going to go way up, hundreds of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many unanswered questions remain in the appropriations process, including how long a short-term funding bill would last, and if it would encompass any spending bills that the parties have found agreement on. With Republicans able to pass most legislation through the House with a simple majority, the spending battle is likely to center on the Senate, where the GOP will need to win the support of at least seven Democrats to overcome the filibuster.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Punchbowl News on Friday, the Senate majority leader, John Thune, said he expected the House to pass, with Trump\u2019s support, a short-term bill to stretch government funding for seven weeks to the Thanksgiving holiday, the goal being to give appropriators more time to finish their work. He accused Democrats of seeking confrontation for political reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that they see it as politically advantageous to have a shutdown. I think that their base is clamoring for that,\u201d Thune said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey want to fight with the Trump administration<\/a>. They don\u2019t have a good reason to do it, and I don\u2019t intend to give them a good reason to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats are wary of a repeat of the funding squabble<\/a> that occurred earlier this year, when Schumer and a handful of Democratic senators reluctantly supported legislation to keep the government funded, arguing that letting spending lapse so early in Trump\u2019s term would undermine their ability to resist his attempts to remake the federal government.<\/p>\n

They are now facing pressure from activist groups such as MoveOn, which said in a memo sent to Democratic leadership earlier this week that the party should \u201crefuse support for any funding bill that doesn\u2019t reverse Republicans\u2019 massive healthcare cuts\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no denying that Democrats are left with little legislative power as Republicans control all three branches of government. But that is exactly why Democrats have to use every ounce of leverage we have surrounding the September 30 funding deadline to prove the Democratic party\u2019s commitment to fighting like hell for the American people,\u201d read the memo, which was first reported by Politico.<\/p>\n

Democrats hope to win back the House next year, which the GOP controls by a majority that is no larger than three seats. In an interview with NBC News, the congresswoman Suzan DelBene, who leads House Democrats\u2019 campaign arm, said Republicans should be blamed for any shutdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re heading for a shutdown, it\u2019s because that\u2019s where they\u2019re leading us,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re ready to be at the table. Republicans don\u2019t even know what they want to do. They\u2019re in charge. They have all the levers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US government is drawing nearer to a potential shutdown after Donald Trump told Republicans on Friday \u201cdon\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-132976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}